"TRUST" by Becca O and Your Cruise Director
The conference room seemed deserted as Captain Kathryn
Janeway strode through the doors. It wasn't until she was seated behind
the massive table that she became aware of the solitary figure outlined
in the shadows by the furthest window. She started to speak, but then
hesitated, opting instead to study Commander Chakotay in thoughtful
silence.
Janeway couldn't begin to fathom what must be going through
his mind. No matter how much time had passed, it seemed that Seska's
betrayal--combined with the discovery that Tuvok had been working
for Starfleet all along, and that B'Elanna had deceived them at Sikarius-
-had shaken Chakotay to the core. Like herself, he was stranded at the
top of a chain of people who sometimes blamed them both for their
situation, stranded out here at the far edges of the galaxy. At least she
had Tuvok and a crew she'd worked with: Chakotay, she realized, had
nobody, not even the people he'd counted on for the last several
months.
"Are you all right?" she asked softly. Turning sharply toward
her voice, he visibly relaxed when he saw who had spoken.
"Captain. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you come in."
"At ease, Commander." She hesitated slightly before asking, "Is
there anything I can do?"
Hearing the faint edge of sympathy in her tone, he straightened
his back and immediately went on the defensive. "Not a thing. I was
just stealing some quiet time by myself," he answered curtly
. "Seems like you've been doing a lot of that lately. I hardly ever
see you except on bridge duty."
"Well, I haven't felt much like socializing," Chakotay answered
with a hard laugh that held no humor.
"I wasn't suggesting that you throw a party, Commander. I do
think you need to be around people more."
He snorted in derision. "Getting too close to my crew--that's
where I made my first mistake. I thought Tuvok was my comrade. And
Seska--"
"Seska was a traitor to all of us," Janeway said, rising and
crossing to the window next to him. "She played me for a fool.
B'Elanna thought she was her friend. She even fooled Tuvok, and
that's saying a lot."
Chakotay turned away, wincing. "You can't possibly
understand. Maybe you think you can, after what Tuvok did to get the
space-folding technology, but it wasn't the same. You don't know."
He fell silent, but she sensed the direction his thoughts had been
moving. "I heard what she said to you in sickbay."
"You only think you've got the story." His voice was harsh. "I
trusted her. I thought she understood what my home meant to me,
she'd experienced Cardassian occupation herself. She may have said
she loved me, but she didn't know me at all." It took several moments
for him to gather his thoughts, and he would have become lost in them
again had she not placed her hand on his arm. Her steady touch brought
him out of his reverie. She stood silently next to him, waiting for him
to continue.
"We met not long after I left Starfleet. I was running along the
Cardassian border, and Seska appeared at one of the ports of call. She
had certain information we had been looking for, so I agreed to take
her along. Convenient, wasn't it?" he asked wryly. "I fell for her story,
hook, line and sinker." Janeway smiled at the old Earth saying.
Squeezing his arm in companionship, she moved away and gave him
the space he needed. She couldn't ever recall Chakotay opening up like
this; she considered that things might be even worse than she'd thought.
"We worked together for almost a year before Tuvok showed
up." Shaking his head, he grinned ruefully. "Mistake number two. But
not as careless as becoming involved with Seska." He sighed. "It was
what you would call a crunch situation. We were in the middle of a
series of dangerous missions, she was there, things got out of hand. I
knew immediately that I had made a bad decision." He paused, running
a hand through his hair and over his face. "I told her it wouldn't work--
two people serving under those circumstances had no right to become
involved with each other. But I don't think she ever gave up. You saw
how easily I was able to set her up, I hated that I could do that to her,
even if she was a traitor. It's one of the most dishonorable things I've
ever done."
Janeway waited for him to continue, then realized that he
expected her to say something. She thought carefully. "I don't like
asking my officers to go against their better judgment, but--"
"No 'but's', Captain. We both did what we had to do. I just don't
like the taste it left." With that comment left hanging in the air,
Chakotay brushed past her and headed for his quarters, leaving
Janeway standing in helpless silence.
Trying to focus on her reports, Janeway's thoughts kept
returning toChakotay. She'd known almost from the beginning that
Seska was trouble--something had set off alarms in the captain's head--
but there had been nothing outward to confirm them. It wasn't because
Seska was Maquis; so was Chakotay, and Janeway had trusted him
implicitly ever since their first encounter on her bridge. Shaking her
head to clear it, she returned to her work, but her concentration kept
wandering to the stricken look on her first officer's face.
It was very late when Janeway finally decided to abandon the
reports for the evening. Glancing at the chronometer on her desk, she
realized that she had missed dinner altogether. Exiting her ready room,
she looked around at the staff on the bridge--apparently a shift change
had occurred, also. She shook her head in mild annoyance, entered the
turbolift and headed for the mess hall. Surely Neelix would have
something left over; if she missed a meal, it had become his habit to put
something aside for her. Secretly, she thought he did it to prevent her
from using her replicator rations.
She decided to take a quick turn through engineering on her
way. The departure of Seska had left them short-handed, and Janeway
felt an almost maternal need to see how things were going. She entered
the engine room on the upper deck, the catwalk overlooking the warp
core. Pausing momentarily, she allowed her gaze to settle on the
console where B'Elanna was usually stationed. Seska had been friendly
with the chief engineer, but the Klingon woman didn't seem as affected
by her betrayal as Chakotay. Maybe her Klingon heritage has something
to do with it, Janeway thought, continuing along the walkway.
As she passed down the first steps, she had a sudden
recollection of a conversation with Chakotay here in engineering, right
after she had made him her first officer. With that ever-present glint in
his eye, he had given her a cockeyed grin and innocently asked, "If
things had happened differently and we were on the Maquis ship right
now, would you have served under me?" She had been tempted to
respond with a similar double entendre, until she caught a glimpse of
the ship behind him, a stark reminder of her responsibility to its crew.
She remembered her answer--"One of the nice things about being
Captain is that you can keep some things to yourself"--and how she had
turned and strode off, hopefully before Chakotay picked up on what
she wasn't saying.
Served under him. She shook her head, trying to quash the
embarrassed grin that crept over her features. He had no business
asking her such a thing even off the record, even if he had meant the
question seriously. But after that remark, she had not been able to
prevent her second in command from haunting her dreams...before she
could suppress it, she was reminded of a nocturnal image of the two of
them, alone on the bridge, stark naked...
Arriving at the dining hall, Janeway was relived to see only a
handful of personnel scattered about. Neelix had indeed set something
aside for her; she found it in its usual place, along with the standard
note from Kes reminding her that she really must take better care of
herself. Smiling wryly, she wavered between eating alone in her cabin
or eating here, still alone.
As Janeway was finishing, the doors opened with a barely
audible swish. Lost in her thoughts, she kept to her meal, her back
turned toward the late arrival. Placing her cup to her lips for the last
of
her...what was this?...a voice behind her said, "Captain?"
Not expecting to be addressed, she jumped, and in doing so
succeeded in spilling her drink down the front of her uniform. Standing
quickly, she pushed away from the table and backed squarely into the
solid front of Commander Chakotay. Dabbing at her uniform with her
napkin, she turned as his barely concealed chuckle turned to outright
laughter.
"I'm glad you find this so amusing."
"You said I needed to get out more, but it looks like I missed
the crowd. Would you like some help?"
Janeway started to say thank you, no, but made the mistake of
glancing up at him. His eyes were focused on her chest, where she was
still rubbing the wet spots. Turning away, she tossed her napkin down
and picked up her tray to leave, but not before Chakotay saw the color
that started in her cheeks and crept over her throat. What a fascinating
paradox, as Tuvok might say--here was a woman in charge of the fate
of hundreds of people, who could face off with a new alien race every
day, yet she blushed under scrutiny. He wondered if only her face
became flushed or whether the pink traveled all the way down her...
"Commander, if the inspection is over, I'll go change out of
this."
Chakotay had the grace to look embarrassed as the captain
caught his unabashed perusal. "Well--goodnight. I'll see you on the
bridge tomorrow."
Nodding in dismissal, Janeway returned to her cabin. Chakotay
watched her escape through the doors and picked at his meal in silence.
There was something about her that put him at ease. The way she kept
touching him, maybe. He couldn't remember ever being this open with
a captain he was serving under. Chuckling to himself, he remembered
asking her if she would have served under *him* had the situation been
reversed, not realizing until she turned away that one could read
another meaning into the question. She had skillfully maneuvered her
way out of answering, but his thoughts had been twisted by the most
provocative vision of his new captain--'serving' under him. Her hair
cascading around her shoulders, her shining eyes gazing into his, her
mouth turning up into a smile, whispering, "Is this what you had in
mind...?"
Chakotay abruptly remembered his original purpose for seeking
out the captain: he had wanted to thank her for hearing him out. He
hadn't realized until that moment in the briefing room just how much he
needed to talk about Seska. Janeway had been there for him tonight
just as she had from the beginning of their forced alliance. No--not
forced--mutual. After all, she could have thrown him in the brig. He
made a mental note to speak with her later.
The morning shift change was accomplished smoothly. As each
post was vacated, the arriving crew member slid effortlessly into place.
Chakotay was already on the bridge when Janeway arrived. "Good
morning, Captain," he said with a trace of leftover deviltry.
Janeway shot him a glance that said volumes without speaking.
"Good morning, Commander. Anything to report?"
"Actually, yes. The night crew reports what they believe to be a
class-M planet, several sectors away. Initial readouts show dense
vegetation and severe, localized weather systems, but no humanoid life
forms. We'll know more as we approach orbit. Shall we proceed?"
"By all means. Set course, Mr. Paris." The possibility of a new
source of supplies drove the previous thoughts from the Captain's
mind. Chakotay rose from his seat and began making the necessary
preparations.
Voyager settled into orbit as the crew began their scans and
Janeway assembled the senior officers in the briefing room. "Miss
Torres, report."
"Sensor scans show that the storm systems we picked up earlier
are heavy, but mostly contained in the outer regions of the main land
mass." Torres called up a schematic of the surface and proceeded to
point out the most likely places for a landing party to beam down. After
some discussion, it was decided that B'Elanna would go, along with
Chakotay, Kim, and Neelix. The latter couldn't be avoided, as he was
responsible for identifying anything remotely edible. Within minutes,
the away team was assembled.
While the turbolift whisked him away towards the transporter
room, Chakotay remembered his promise to speak with the captain.
Damn, he thought to himself, it will have to wait. He set about
calibrating his tricorder and pushed thoughts of Kathryn Janeway from
his mind.
The bridge crew had failed to anticipate that mere atmospheric
disturbances could disrupt transporter locks, communication, and
almost every system the crew of the Voyager depended on. Several
hours passed with only sporadic communication between Voyager and
the away team; when contact was made, the static and gaps made the
them difficult if not impossible to understand. Janeway fought down the
urge to rise from her chair and pace the length of the bridge, so she did
the next best thing--"Mr. Tuvok, report."
Frowning at the display before him, the Vulcan proceeded with
a report that no one wished to hear. "Captain, we're picking up a high
concentration of electrostatic particles in the lower atmosphere."
"Location?"
"Moving toward the landing party."
Giving in to the urge to stand, she called out, "Janeway to
transporter room one. Get the away team back here. *Now*."
Turning to her left, Torres was surprised to find the transporter
pad beside her empty. "Where's Chakotay? He was right there--"
The comm panel chirped. "Janeway to away team. Report."
"Captain, we just..." Torres began.
"Lieutenant, where is Commander Chakotay?" B'Elanna
registered the captain's surprise but dismissed it as she turned to the
transporter chief, who was frantically adjusting controls. She moved
quickly to the other side of the transporter console with Kim, and the
three began to work. "He didn't make it back with us, Captain.
Attempting an emergency beamout now."
She barked orders to the transporter operator, called for
engineering backup. But it was no use. Not only could they not get a
lock on the commander, they couldn't even trace his comm signal.
"Captain, that storm is interfering with all our systems--communication,
transporters, everything. We're going to have to wait until it passes to
beam him out of there."
Janeway's expression darkened. "We'll take a shuttlecraft." She
jerked her head up to look at the chief of security. "I'm leaving you in
command, Mr. Tuvok. You're going with me, B'Elanna," she added
into her comm badge, her voice warning the Vulcan not to bother to
debate the wisdom of having three senior officers absent from the ship
at the same time. She whipped around to find Kes walking off the
turbolift, an expression of concern on her face, and smiled gratefully at
the Ocampa. "I'm glad you're here. I think you should come too.
Bring whatever medical equipment you might need that we don't
normally store on shuttlecraft, just in case. Let's go."
They separated on landing, Kes going with B'Elanna, Janeway
searching alone. The landing party had set down on a rocky beach less
than fifteen meters from a dense forest; Neelix and Kim had gone into
the undergrowth to scavenge for edibles, while Torres and Chakotay
had set up equipment to take soil and mineral samples from the rocks
near the shore. The tricorders and shuttle scanners were disrupted by
the storm, but it was nevertheless clear that Chakotay had not remained
anywhere near the beamup site.
Janeway had entered the dense forest while the others searched
along the shoreline. After a brief time, her comm badge twittered.
"Captain, I think I've located Commander Chakotay."
Torres had picked up a tricorder signal, faint but unmistakable,
once the storm front cleared the water's edge. They moved on foot,
not trusting the shuttle's transporters in the wake of the atmospheric
activity; it took almost half an hour to reach her first officer, during
the
course of which Janeway had to fight the urge to break into a run and
leave the others behind. She marched along the water at her fastest
clip, straining against the inertia of the sand. When the first officer's
shape finally came into view, she raced over the rocks ahead of the
others. "Commander!" she shouted across the distance, and then, when
he did not turn, "Chakotay!"
He glanced slowly in their direction, but his eyes registered no
recognition whatsoever.
He knew the names for all the objects he could see--the trees,
the water, the sand, the sky. And he knew the names for his feelings:
he was free in the open air, he was lonely, he was glad to see others.
He remembered that somewhere an animal called a wolf looked after
him. But he did not remember his own name, nor where he came from,
nor how he had come to this place. And he did not remember these
people, at least not in any meaningful way.
The thin dark woman with the ridges on her forehead made no
impression on him at all. Although the tiny blond pixie felt comforting
on some spiritual level, she did not look familiar. But the sight of the
woman with the golden hair made his stomach drop. He had the
distinct impression that he had known her for years, perhaps even on
another plane of existence.
"Captain..." the girl said. Something wasn't right, or not quite
right, about the word. The golden woman turned. "I'm reading
internal injuries, possibly brain damage. Some bleeding on the
cerebrum, maybe hematoma, definite concussion, I can't tell how
serious without an internal scan."
"I don't think that there's anything further we can do for the
Commander here. We should return to the ship, Captain." The dark
woman had spoken, and once again the term made him jump. The
syllables shifted in his mind. He did not realize that he was thinking
until his voice told them all.
"Kathryn."
"TRUST" (part 2) by Becca O and Your Cruise Director
Her head whipped around to him. "What?" she demanded.
"Isn't that your name?" He was bewildered again; he knew that
it was what he called her, and also that it was not--in another lifetime?
But after a moment she nodded, smiling in heartwrenching relief.
"You know who we are. You looked so blank..." Her voice
trailed off as he looked at the other two, the confusion returning. He
wanted to tell her that he remembered her, but he was nervous in front
of the others, and she suddenly seemed to sense what he was feeling.
She turned sharply to the others. "Get back to the shuttle," she
ordered. "Prepare it for departure." They both regarded her, then one
another, with wide-eyed expressions, but obeyed her orders silently.
She--Kathryn--moved slowly beside him, letting him fall into
sync with her as they moved across the sand. "We have to get you
back to the ship, Commander," she said earnestly. "I can't tell you how
sorry I--"
"I'm not leaving," he interrupted firmly.
Janeway stared in shock into the somewhat unfocused eyes of
her first officer. "Why not?"
After a long moment he replied. "I remember you. But I don't
remember those others. I don't remember any ship, and I'm not going
anywhere until I know what's going on."
"Listen to me, Chakotay. You serve under me on the starship
Voyager. You are the second in command of that vessel, and we have
got to return to it before the storms return here." She had to talk
around the hard lump forming in her throat. "I don't know what
happened to you, but the storms caused it. Do you remember anything
about that?"
"No," he answered, twisting his face in concentration. "I
remember the rain, I remember that there are thirty-two names for
clouds in a language that's different from this one. I don't remember
very much about me. I don't remember very much about you either,
Kathryn."
"Well, you remember my name. That's a start." Her voice
sounded a little shaky. She had an impulse to touch him, and an
immediate instinct telling her not to, this time. "You're going to have
to stop calling me that, though."
He asked, "Why?" and for a moment she almost gave in; if her
name was the one thing he had to hold onto, let him use it for awhile.
On the other hand, she needed to jog his memory, remind him of the
terms of his everyday life. Janeway did not know what to say; she felt a
familiar pang, a moment of blind frustration at not having a counselor
on board.
"You never call me Kathryn," she tried to smile. "At least,
almost never. It isn't proper protocol. I'm your commanding officer
and there's a hierarchy we follow. Don't you recall anything about that?
It wasn't always your strong point anyway." She had the sudden
impression that he was playing with her, that he remembered everything
and simply didn't want to deal with any of it.
He echoed her smile, letting her words roll around in his head
but unsure how to respond. He did not remember, but moreover he
got the distinct sense that she was not telling him the whole truth.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"It's a long story, and we don't have time right now." She hit
the trefoil bauble on her chest. "Lieutenant Torres. Report," she
snapped.
"We'll be ready to depart in approximately five minutes,
Captain. I suggest that we not wait any longer, as another storm front
could form at any time."
Janeway glanced sharply at Chakotay. "You heard what she
said," she nodded to him. "We've got to go. We'll talk about it on the
ship..."
"I'm not leaving." He sounded almost like a child, voice filled
with both unhappiness and stubbornness, as he turned to the sea and
wandered slowly toward it. "I remember how to swim," he added
abruptly, and started down the rocky shore.
"Don't go in the water..." She fled after him, catching up and
placing her body between his and the sea. "No," she ordered.
Something in her voice made him meet her eyes. He pulled her
toward him, away from the ocean, lifting her up slightly over the sharp
pebbles that littered the sand. "Kathryn," he began again.
"Please stop calling me that!" She glared as he pressed closer,
gripping her upper arms. "Commander, I'm sorry if you don't remember
why this is inappropriate..."
His eyes bored into hers, scanning the blazing surface. "I know
what you said," he interrupted. "Protocol, command, hierarchy. But I
think I don't believe any of those reasons and neither do you. Why don't
you want me to say your name?" His expression begged her. She
opened her mouth to respond and found that she could not repeat the
litany she'd offered him earlier: they were only excuses, and at that
moment they would have been lies.
As if he took her parted lips as a sign, he moved still closer to
her. She stiffened. "I'm not trying to make you do anything you don't
want to do," he murmured, his eyes clouding. He slid his fingers down
her arms and cupped her elbows in his hands. "I just want you to tell
me what's going on. Can't we sit down and talk about it?"
Her stomach tightened into a fierce cramp and she shifted back
in pain. He released her, closing his eyes as the contact broke, his
mouth twisting in disappointment. Her sharp inhalation of relief made
him look at her again. "All right," she managed, "We'll talk. But first I
want you to tell me something."
"What?" His expression had softened noticeably--she turned her
face quickly to the ground, studying her feet as they prodded at the
stones. She had a wrenching idea of what he thought she was going to
ask him to tell her. His hand reached up to rest on her arm and she
jumped: she was always touching people like that herself, she would
have to remember that it could be upsetting as well as comforting. Her
hands felt suddenly cold despite the moist heat of the trees behind them
and the warm wind off the sea, and her nostrils flared; she could barely
breathe, let alone ask him what he remembered of the storm. She shook
her head.
"Let's walk instead," he said. "I don't think it's going to storm
for a little while." He turned and started down the beach, and after a
moment she followed stiffly, hoping he was right about the weather. As
she caught up to him, he broke into a jog, forcing her to do so as well;
then he began to run in earnest, and she had to use all her strength to
keep up with him.
"Chakotay!" she gasped. "I don't think--you should be doing
this--straining yourself--"
"Feels good, though, doesn't it?" he called back to her, slowing
enough for her to catch him without having to break her stride. "I feel
like I've been in a cage." She tried to focus on his face to see if he
meant the ship, but she was having trouble reading through the
exhilarated grin; she'd never seen him with such an expression of glee.
He dropped his pace, kicking at the sand, and she turned her trot into
her usual fast walk. "You should see how you look when you run," he
smiled. "Like catching anything depends on whether you concentrate
hard enough. Not like you're just enjoying the chase."
"The chase--is only fun--if you have an objective," she panted,
looking out at the water as she tried to catch her breath and her
thoughts. The cramp of tension was completely gone from her belly,
overtaken by the subtle ache of exertion. She felt a wave of gratitude
towards him and could not turn it off quickly enough when he
unexpectedly put an arm around her. He turned her toward himself,
looking lost; she instinctively put her hands on his arms, meaning to
comfort him, so she had no one to blame but herself when he dropped
his free hand to her hip and pulled her against him. A long, silent
moment passed as she struggled and then knew she had made a
mistake.
"I wish you'd tell me what's going on," he said. "You're telling
me I have to trust you about everything--who I am, how I know you--
even though my instincts are telling me that you're holding out on me."
She thought quickly before replying. "I'm trusting enough in
who I know you to be that I'm here alone trying to protect your
position rather than taking you back to the ship." He looked at her for
a moment and then sat in the warm sand, tugging gently on her arm to
pull her down beside him. She knelt, looking at him, and then turned to
sit beside him, gazing out at the water. Flashes of conversations they
had had echoed in her head: perhaps one of them would stir his
memory? She thought about telling him a story from before she met
him, or telling him her reactions from the few times he had shared his
own background with her. A sudden sense of unreality closed about
her; she almost felt as though she were speaking to an image of the man
who had done those things rather than to the actual Chakotay. "It's
going to storm. Soon. It makes me nervous being this close to the
water." She started to rise, curling her knees under her body to push
herself up. He caught her by the arm as he rose to his knees himself,
turning her towards him while he put his hand on her other shoulder.
"What is it?" she asked.
A ferocious gust of wind came off the sea, blowing her hair
across both of their faces and into his mouth as it tilted her toward him.
She slapped her comm badge and heard only static. Large, scattered
drops of rain began to fall around and on them. "Let's go," he shouted
above the sound, catching her and tugging her to her feet as they
stumbled toward the dense trees.
She imagined what the storm would feel like when it came,
drenching them even within the shelter of the jungle, her hair falling
soaked and heavy in the heat, her body streaked with water where the
clothes clung moistly. If she were alone she would take them off, let
her wet hair cover her breasts, strip down to her underwear. She
suddenly wished she could curl up against him and ride out the storm,
her face cupped between his shoulder blades, one of her knees between
his, her arms wrapped around his back to rest on his chest. Or the
reverse, his arms circling her waist and his face pressed over hers,
keeping the rain out of her eyes.
"Do you want to stay here?" he asked. "Or do you think you
should try to get back to this mythical ship of yours, just to be safe?"
"We'll be all right here for the moment, they can't beam us out
during the storm." They had reached the perimeter of the trees.
"Chakotay. You must be able to remember some things about what the
real you is like."
"I don't like that phrase, 'the real me,'" he growled. "I can only
be who I know myself to be, and that's me, right now." He looked at
her seriously as he pulled her under a huge palmlike leaf, trying to make
it arch over them like a tent. "I mean, how do we ever know if we're
really us except that we think we are? Didn't that ever happen to you,
where for a minute you really weren't sure if you were the same person
you used to be?"
She thought for a moment and then shook her head. "No."
He moved closer to her as the sound of rain pelting the leaf
increased. She thought about telling him that his smile alone was proof
that he wasn't himself--the Chakotay she worked with never smiled at
her with such unrestrained ease, and he was talking more than she'd
ever heard him. "Kathryn," he continued, as if she needed further proof;
she let it go this time with a raised brow. "You realize that because I
don't remember who you are, you're probably not acting like yourself?"
A sudden gush of mud swept her sideways. He caught her with
his legs and dragged her up with his hands on her arms, toward him, his
look telling her that it was up to her to stop him; she wrapped her legs
around his body and let him pull her in, they held each other as the huge
frond they had been using for cover bent under the weight of the mud
and water and the warm flood spilled over them both. His question had
stopped her breath for a moment. What she would normally do, of
course, was to tell him that he was out of line. Politely but firmly, she
would put on the captain face and remind him of his duties and her
own...and then later she would go back to her quarters and conjure him
in his absence...was there some sort of psychic resonance? Were there
nights when they had they both been alone in their rooms, making love
to one another in absentia?
Chakotay met her eyes, and too late Janeway realized that he
had trapped her. She'd told him she trusted him even as she was
holding out the possibility that he was lying--not because she thought
he was, but because she needed to believe it, since if he was telling the
truth then it meant that the feelings he was showing her were sincere.
She tore herself away from his body, sticky and solid against her own.
It was impossible to talk to him when his skin was making her acutely
aware of her physical reactions, exaggerated by the dozens of fingertips
of rain that stroked her every second, mud sliding down her thighs, heat
rising from the jungle and from both of their soaked bodies, everything
would be washed away by the water.
"You really don't remember? Then promise me," her voice
quivered with intensity, "that when you do remember, you'll forgive me
for what I'm about to do." He nodded slowly, his expression serious.
Her Chakotay, the man she had come to know aboard Voyager, had a
constant glint of humor sparkling just under the surface. How many
times had she turned in his direction, only to find him watching her with
that subtle look on his face? But it was no longer there, as if that part
of his personality had been wiped clean. "I'm going to take you back to
the ship. You belong--"
"I belong with you, I know that." A long moment of silence
stretched between them as she considered rebuttals, affirmations,
consequences she couldn't even fathom. He reached for her hands with
his, looking embarrassed. "But I can't go yet. I don't really remember
you, but I feel deep within my spirit that we're--more than crewmates. I
don't know if you're using my present state as an excuse or if you only
feel guilty about what happened to me. Please--just tell me the truth.
About us. Were we lovers?"
She was shocked beyond speech for a moment, and as she
worked her jaw, seeing his expression grow more confident at her
reaction, a wash of desire flooded over her like the storm: let him
believe what he wants, let him say what he wants, let him do what he
wants. Her sensible side finally won out. "No. We were never involved
that way."
"I don't believe you. I know how I feel, and I know you feel it,
too." Chakotay pulled her closer, very slowly. He bent his head until
their foreheads were almost touching and she was trembling slightly.
"Look at what your body is saying--"
Her comm badge chirped. "Torres to Janeway."
"Janeway here," she answered sharply.
"Captain, we can no longer delay our departure. Sensors show
a severe weather system, sector one-four-oh, heading toward this
region--"
"Captain," Kes interjected, "given the current condition of
Commander Chakotay, it would not be wise to remain any longer. The
variances in atmospheric pressure could have an adverse effect on the
head injuries he sustained. It would be in his best interest to have the
doctor assess his injuries..."
"Getting back to that ship means a lot to you, doesn't it?" he
asked quietly.
She looked sadly at him. "You can have all the privacy you
need. There's no need for you to see anyone else or have contact with
anyone on board unless that's what you want."
"Will I be able to see you?"
"Yes. But not until the doctor has thoroughly examined you and
you've had some rest."
Smiling with just a hint of his former self, he replied, "I'd rest
better if you were with me."
"Nice try, but I don't think so," she weighed her answer. "Once
we're back on board Voyager, all command protocol must be
observed."
A lengthy silence ensued. Chakotay finally said, "I'll live with
your conditions. But this can't go on forever, *Kathryn*."
Wincing, she turned toward the shuttle.
As Janeway conferred with Torres, Kes silently observed
Chakotay's reactions to his surroundings. With her soft-spoken voice,
she asked, "Does any of this seem familiar, Commander?"
"Not a bit."
"Well, I wouldn't worry too much. My initial scans show
nothing that appears to be permanent. As your injuries heal, your
memory should begin to return." Kes kept her level gaze trained on
him, mentally gauging his responses.
"You said *should* begin to return. Is there a chance--"
"Yes, Commander. A very slight chance the damage could be
permanent."
The flight proved uneventful, if a bit unnerving. From
Chakotay's viewpoint, this was his first trip. As the shuttle began its
approach to Voyager, the Captain turned to find his eyes studying her
from behind. "I've made arrangements to have you beamed directly to
sickbay after we dock. The less contact you have with the crew, the
better. You are at an extreme disadvantage. They know *you*, but
you, on the other hand, have no recollection of *them*. I don't foresee
any problems, but after what happened with Ses--well, after our recent
problems, I think it's better if they think of you as very much in
control." Her momentary slip left him wondering what she was so
anxious to cover up.
The transfer was accomplished smoothly. Kes accompanied
Chakotay to sickbay and Janeway and Torres headed for the bridge.
B'Elanna was the first to break the silence. "Captain, I don't mean to be
out of line, but might I ask your reason for isolating Chakotay?"
Janeway looked at the younger woman; Chakotay was her
friend as well as her former commanding officer, she reminded herself,
the lieutenant was just looking out for his interests. "I'm a little wary
of
letting the crew know the extent of Chakotay's injuries. You and I both
know that some of the former Maquis crewmembers are staying in line
primarily because of him, and after the incidents with the Sikarians--"
Torres blanched "--and the Kazon, I'd prefer to keep the appearance of
as much order and stability as possible. It makes sense to buy some
time; give the Doctor a chance to see exactly what is wrong."
"I understand." Torres opened her mouth, closed it again, and
then abruptly blurted out, "Captain, it's probably none of my business,
or even yours, but about Seska--I know that amnesia can be caused by
trauma, and there are some things about her and Chakotay that maybe
you should know..."
Janeway held up a hand to silence B'Elanna. "He told me some
of it. I don't think that Seska's betrayal alone would have had such a
devastating impact on him." She looked curiously at her junior officer.
"I know you and Seska were friends, B'Elanna," she added quietly.
"Has it been difficult for you, coping with the discovery that she was..."
"Not at all," Torres said a shade too aggressively. "Captain, the
person I thought I was friends with wasn't ever real. A lot of things I
took for granted in the Maquis turned out not to be real, and that's just
one of them. Starfleet, for instance. I didn't think there were any
captains I'd ever want to serve under."
The lift had reached the uppermost deck. The captain of the
Voyager touched the chief engineer briefly on the arm and smiled
warmly; she didn't have an adequate response.
Janeway had no desire to remain on the bridge. What she really
wanted was to be in sickbay, probably in the way but close enough to
see for herself what was transpiring. Finally, she was able to turn the
helm over to the next shift and make her escape. Entering the med unit,
she was horrified to see her first officer unconscious on a biobed,
attached to all sorts of monitors. As had become usual of late, Kes was
right there with the answers.
"It was necessary to sedate him, Captain. We needed to run
neural scans that are extremely sensitive to movement. He'll be fine."
Seeing the look on the captain's face, she continued, "You're welcome
to stay with him for a while if you like. Other than the medical staff,
you are the only crewmember with authorized access."
"Thank you, Kes. I suppose I'm overreacting, but--"
"But you care about your crew. I know. That's been apparent
ever since you agreed to keep me and Neelix on the ship." Smiling, she
returned to her work.
Janeway wished that were the whole truth. It occurred to her
exactly how much she had come to depend on Chakotay's silent
assistance. Now that was hanging in the balance. Covering her face
with her fingers, she gently placed her remaining hand on his shoulder.
She wanted to scream at the transporter chief who had failed to retrieve
him during the first beamout, she wanted to return to her ready room
and bury herself in work, she wanted to stay here and hold him, she
wanted--
"Captain, I want you to rest." The Doctor had come to stand by
her; she was so involved in her own thoughts that she hadn't even been
aware of his presence. "There's nothing you can do here. The
Commander will be out for most of the night, and quite frankly, you
look like hell."
With a wry smile, Janeway said, "Well, Doctor, I see your
command of the vernacular is improving. Call me if there's any change.
No matter what time, I want to be informed immediately. Understood?"
"Understood, Captain," he replied and turned to his work. Kes
turned and her eyes followed the Captain's retreating back as she left
sickbay.
"TRUST" (part 3) by Becca O and Your Cruise Director
"Kes to Janeway."
"Janeway here. Go ahead." The captain sat up and attempted to
get her bearings. The chronometer read '0400', but where was she? Oh,
yes, the sitting room of her quarters. Within seconds, all of the events
of the past several days replayed themselves in her head. Shaking it,
she waited for Kes' report.
"I thought you'd like to know, Captain. Commander Chakotay
is showing signs of regaining consciousness."
"On my way, Janeway out." Even as she spoke, she was
heading for the door, trying to repair the damage done to her hair by
her nap on the couch.
"Doctor, report." Wasting no time, she crossed to the biobed
where the commander was still unconscious. Without thinking about it,
she rested the palms of her hands on his shoulder as if willing him to
open his eyes.
"His neural responses are improving. He should have come
around by now, but I suspect his extended sleep was more a product of
exhaustion than any of the sedatives he was given." The doctor
continued his scans as Janeway gritted her teeth. Of course Chakotay
was exhausted. He'd been under inordinate stress for months, like
herself...no wonder he was wiped out. Unwittingly, her fingers
tightened their grip on Chakotay's shoulder.
"Ah, Commander. Good. You're awake." The doctor's
pronouncement caused her to turn, and seeing Chakotay's dark eyes
boring into her, she could not stifle a gasp of relief.
As if they were the only two people in the room, Chakotay
demanded, "Have you been here all the time?"
"No. The doctor made me leave. Threatened *me* with
sedation, too, if I didn't rest." She chuckled softly.
"I'm glad. You probably needed the rest."
"You remember?" she whispered, moving one hand to grasp his
fingers.
A pause and then, "No, I don't. I don't know where that thought
came from. I wish you'd tell me what's been going on around here."
"Excuse me," the doctor interrupted. "If this can wait till later,
please? I *do* have a patient to examine. Captain, if you insist on being
here, may I ask you to please release the Commander's hand and wait in
my office?"
Dropping Chakotay's hand as if it were on fire, she said, "Of
course, Doctor." She turned and walked stiffly to the office, rosy color
spreading up her throat.
Turning as the doctor entered his office, Janeway met him with
a thousand questions on her face, but asked only one. "Well?"
"The commander appears to be recovering adequately from his
trauma. However, it will be several days yet before he is able to return
to active duty--if at all."
"What do you mean, *if*?"
"I can find no explanation for his loss of memory, Captain. The
neural pathways are healing nicely, the subdural bruising has been
repaired. There is no apparent physical reason for his amnesia."
"You mean he doesn't *want* to remember?" Janeway was
completely takenaback by this possibility.
"Not precisely. But his subconscious mind may be blocking out
events too complex to process at the moment." The doctor wore the
smug look that seemed to say *Very good, human. Now you've got it.*
She ignored the look as she considered the ramifications. What would
his brain want to forget? Was the injury so traumatic? Or was B'Elanna
right, did Seska do this to him...or had *she* done this to him, by
making him put on a Starfleet uniform? If only they had a ship's
counselor... Janeway realized that the doctor had been speaking for
some time. "...in his quarters, familiar surroundings will assist him."
"You're right, Doctor." The germ of a plan began to form in the
back of her mind. "How soon can he be released?"
"I see no reason to hold him here. I expect to see him at 1100
hours for a follow-up examination, though."
"I'll see him to his quarters, and make sure he reports to you.
Thank you, Doctor." Striding toward Chakotay's biobed, she tapped
her commbadge. "Lieutenant Torres, please meet me at Commander
Chakotay's quarters."
"Aye, Captain," came the sleepy response. Janeway winced as
she remembered what time it was. "B'Elanna--belay that order. Meet
me at 0800 hours."
"Thank you, Captain, I'll be there."
Chakotay was sitting up as she approached him. "The doctor
says you're free to go. I'll show you to your quarters. Perhaps being
among your own things will help your memory along. I've asked
Lieutenant Torres to meet us there later, she's an old friend."
"My old friend, or your old friend?" he asked with a grin.
Smiling back, she said, "Your old friend, but fast becoming one
of mine, Commander."
"I wish you wouldn't call me that, Kath--Captain. I don't feel
like a commander." The softness of his tone conveyed the seriousness
of his comments.
"I know that. But we agreed to abide by Starfleet protocol
while we sort this out. It has to be that way."
"What happens if I never regain my memory? Will you be
content to see me as just myself?" Having no sensible answer, she
simply turned and led the way out of sickbay and to his quarters. She
left him alone there, looking stranded like a child in a strange place,
not
knowing how to ease the transition and not trusting herself to remain.
Having spent much of the last day sedated, he felt no need to
sleep, but alone in the strange room, Chakotay could not settle into any
kind of relaxation. He learned quickly how to use the replicator rations
he'd been given in sickbay, but could not remember what he liked to
eat, and he wondered at the sparse possessions in what were
supposedly his quarters: a handful of carvings, a few drawings, a book,
a bundle of animal fur containing some kind of electronic device, a
piece of skin pulled taut over something magnetic with some
accompanying stones...he did not remember any of them. He sat and
stared at one of the stones for a time and felt his mind begin to wander:
he saw an almost familiar terrain, a large wolf staring at him from
glittering eyes...eyes that reminded him oddly of Kathryn Janeway's.
That thought snapped him back to himself, alone in the dim room.
His door buzzed after what seemed like forever and Kathryn
Janeway entered, followed by the dark woman with the raised bumps
on her head which made it look as through her brows were furrowed in
concentration. "Are you in trouble?" he asked, surprising himself, and
the two women stared.
"No, Commander, *you're* in trouble," the black-haired woman
replied, and he saw Janeway almost smile. "Since you told me some
things about your tribe's traditional ways of focusing your spirit, I
thought maybe I could help."
"You mean you know what all these things are?" He held out
the black feather which had been bundled in the animal skin, and she
took it and nodded.
"A black bird's wing, a stone from the river...and this acts as a
replacement for psychoactive drugs," she nodded at the electronic
device. "I think we'd better sit down for this, Chakotay, so I can
explain a few things you might need to be reminded of."
Janeway watched with a pang of--was it jealousy? fear?--as
B'Elanna moved across Chakotay's quarters and he followed. A strong
desire to involve herself in the proceedings warred with the knowledge
that she might only interfere--and Torres had known him for years,
learned his customs, might be able to reach him on a personal or
spiritual level which she herself could not access. She wondered how
much Seska had known of Chakotay's disciplines, then decided that that
line of thought was not worth pursuing. "Well, I'll leave you to
your...meditating," she said lightly, and turned to go. "I'll be on the
Bridge if you need me. The Commander is due in sickbay at 1100
hours, B'Elanna."
"Captain, Engineering is working on rerouting some plasma
flow inducers which might cause a slight variation in our warp
signature. I told Lieutenant Carey to report to you if there are any
anomalous readings." Torres looked annoyed for a moment, as if she
wished she were down there working on the problem herself.
"I'll let you know if anything critical occurs, Lieutenant. And,
Commander, I'll speak with you later."
Chakotay's voice arrested Janeway as she turned to go,
stopping her for a moment. "B'Elanna? Remind me where we met?"
"Sabotaging a ship like the one you were in yesterday," the
engineer's voice followed the captain out the door.
Chakotay was still a little dizzy when he arrived in sickbay two
hours later. With Torres' assistance, he had had several visions. He
was in a village of wooden houses, but hundreds of snakes dropped of
the trees and swarmed out of the skies and took it over. A large wolf
led him away from the village and onto a ship. When he reached the
command center, B'Elanna and a dark man with large ears were waiting
for him. The stranger pressed a button, and then they were standing in
an unfamiliar room which Chakotay suspected must be Voyager's
bridge. "Traitor!" he shouted and pulled a weapon, but Kathryn
appeared and took it out of his hand, saying, "He did it for the good of
all of us," and then led B'Elanna and the man with the pointed ears
away by the hands, leaving him alone.
A woman with glittering green eyes and a wrinkled nose came
forward, but as he watched, thick scales grew out of the gray skin of
her neck, and deep snakelike furrows rose across her cheeks. "If you
follow that she-wolf, you'll make yourself a prisoner," she hissed. "Just
remember where your real loyalties lie." He turned to the viewscreen
and saw the village burning, as dozens of people in Voyager uniforms
stood and watched. He saw Kathryn emerge unscathed from the flames
and hold out her hand to him: "Come join me, Commander, and leave
this behind you." He stared past her at the fire, where he witnessed the
ship he had been on earlier exploding. As the shattered pieces flew into
the air, a howling wolf leaped up with them. "What do I do?" he
begged, but the animal vanished off the screen, over his head and out of
sight.
B'Elanna seemed uncomfortable when he began to tell her what
he had seen. "Commander, I'm not sure, but I think you're not
supposed to discuss these visions with anyone, or you'll make your
animal guide angry," she told him.
"But how can you help me interpret them if..."
"I think only you can interpret what you see in a trance state,"
she replied. "Chakotay, maybe you should talk to Kes. I've heard that
she has some mystical powers, and she won't be biased like I will from
knowing you this long. I mean, you're the one who stopped me from
stopping the captain when she made the decision to keep us here in the
first place."
"On the ship?" he asked, confused.
"In the quadrant." B'Elanna sighed sharply. "I'm not a
psychiatrist, I don't know if it's right for me to tell you these things
or
not. Let's get you to sickbay and see what they say."
Kes, whose serious smile and musical voice made him
comfortable, offered two suggestions. "Maybe you should listen to
your own personal logs, Commander. And, I don't know how to go
about broaching the subject, but maybe we should ask Tuvok about a
mind meld. Perhaps if he entered your thoughts, he could reach your
hidden memories."
"Who is Tuvok?" Kes pulled up a picture out of the personnel
reports onto the viewscreen. Chakotay was shocked when he
discovered the identity of the figure in his vision. He did not wish to
open a past he could not recall to a man with no emotions, especially
not a man whom he had accused of betraying him. Whatever secrets
lay hidden in his mind, not only his own privacy but that of everyone he
knew would be open for scrutiny. "I'll check the logs. Maybe
something there will make me remember."
"Commander..." The young woman smiled reassuringly at him.
"I can't be sure, but I sense that--your soul, I guess you'd call it--is
intact. It's like there's something sitting on top of it that's keeping
it
from getting free, but no part of you has been damaged. I think you
can trust yourself." He waited for her to elaborate, but she turned back
to the padd she had been studying.
Janeway was in her ready room reading reports on fuel
consumption when her communicator chirped. "Chakotay to
Janeway."
She jumped a bit: she did not think he had called her by her last
name since his memory had gone. "Yes, Commander, what is it?"
"I was wondering whether I could see you when you have a
moment. There are some things in my logs that aren't completely clear
to me, and since they have to do with you, I thought maybe you could
explain them."
She could not read his voice: she thought he sounded amused,
but his regular speech was warm and secure and often sounded as
though he were smiling even when he was quite serious. She started to
ask him what in particular had caught his attention, then felt a strange
sense of paranoia envelop her: she did not want to discuss certain
things over a communicator signal. "I'll meet you in your quarters as
soon as I can."
"I want to know exactly what I said to you when you first
suggested that I become your first officer."
The statement took Janeway completely by surprise.
"I mean, I must have been grateful, right? Seeing as you could
have tried to arrest me. Was I grateful? Or was I furious when you
first suggested that I wear this uniform?"
"You took it pretty stoically." She was shaken. On the one
hand, this was her opportunity to find out what Chakotay really
thought about his situation, serving under her on a ship that claimed
allegiance to the government which had sold out his home. On the
other hand, when he did remember, he might never forgive the violation
of privacy...
"I think it bothered me more than I let on, then." His voice
interrupted her musings once he realized that she was not going to say
more. "Apparently I must be a pretty private person, there's a lot I
don't say even in my personal logs. I've been trying to read my face to
see what I really think." Chakotay smiled inscrutably. "I did research
all afternoon. You didn't tell me how we met, Kathryn."
"I did tell you. We met on the bridge of this ship, we joined
forces to combat a common threat."
"Yes, but you failed to mention that you represent an
organization I despise, and that I'm only following you because I
haven't got a better plan."
You don't want to know, she told herself, even as she asked, "Is
that what you said in your personal logs?"
"No." He cocked his head to the floor. "That's what someone
named Seska said." His eyes locked on her face. "I found out about
the Maquis from reading my criminal record from your security
profiles, and then asking B'Elanna Torres a few questions. B'Elanna
said you're the only person on board who knows the terms under which
we agreed to merge the crews. She also seems to think that I resent
those terms more than I've let on to anyone, even to you. And this
Seska said some things to me about working under you which seem to
have...upset me."
Choosing her words carefully, Janeway said, "Seska was trying
to sow dissent on this ship. She might have thought that accusing you
of capitulating to me would hurt you, and that might have caused you
to fight me."
Chakotay's stare was unyielding as he crossed his arms over his
chest. "Well, apparently it worked. Every place she shows up in my
logs, there's some problem: she's stolen supplies, or I suspect her of
collaborating with other officers to use some kind of illegal
technology..." Janeway gasped slightly. Of course Seska would have
been involved with B'Elanna and Tuvok in the Sikarian incident--and
Seska hadn't trusted Chakotay any more than Torres had-- "...but
apparently none of that had much of an effect on me, because I was
angry with *you* for making me use my relationship with her to
unmask her. And even more angry when it turned out that you were
right. Or at least 'angry' is the word I used in my logs, I can't tell
from
my face. I gather you were present when she said those things to me,
right before she took off?"
"It's really none of my business..." she began, but Chakotay cut
her off, grabbing her by the shoulders.
"Well, make it your business, because I can't sort any of this out
by myself," he snapped. "She left. I must have told you something,
because I logged that I was annoyed at myself for talking to you so
much, a very strange report, I made some kind of joke about serving
under you. It's the last entry. Must have been quite a day." Janeway
tried to step out from under his hands but he held her in place.
"Anything you want to add that might jog my memory?"
Was she being selfish, merely afraid to embarrass herself by
telling him what had happened that night? "I spilled a drink," she said.
"We were--flirting."
"I see." He looked hard at her. "You say you care about me,
but at the same time you're using me for purposes of your own--which
have to do with this Federation of yours that I was at war with before I
met you," he said in a low growl. "There are all kinds of undercover
games going on, Tuvok and Seska on my ship and now the whole lot of
us on yours. How do I know that B'Elanna's really an old friend?"
Chakotay glared directly into her face. "How do I know that someone
didn't fake all these logs for some reason? Kathryn, the only instinct
that I trust is the one telling me that I can trust you, yet every piece
of
information at my disposal says the opposite."
...hadn't he told her that his people believed in life debts?
Janeway swallowed hard. "What you were just trying to ask
me." Her voice came out more evenly than she expected. "What you
asked me on the planet yesterday--I can only tell you what I thought, I
don't know what you thought, we didn't talk about it." She took a deep
breath and his fingers clenched slightly on her upper arms. "I was
telling the truth when I told you we were never involved. But I think--
we might have been heading in that direction. I don't know how you
felt. But I know how I felt, and you might have noticed..."
Afterwards she knew that she had noticed him leaning down
toward her as she spoke the words, waiting for her to confess, yet at
that moment when his arms lifted her up and his mouth moved over her
own, she did not stop him. He kissed her hungrily, waiting for her to
respond. "I knew it," he murmured, nuzzling her forehead. "There had
to be a reason..." She forced herself to remain passive, not to fight but
not to kiss him back, until he finally gave up trying and withdrew, his
expression darkening. "What is it?"
"You understood then, Commander, it's why we never talked
about it. It would be putting the entire ship at risk. You saw the logs,
you know about Seska and what that relationship almost did to this
ship. And it's more complicated--neither of us can afford to get
distracted from getting home. That has to be our primary focus. If I
haven't been completely honest about how I feel, it's because--"
Her communicator chirped. "Bridge to Janeway," Tom Paris'
voice came between the two senior officers. "We're getting some very
strange energy readings, Captain, from within the ship."
"On my way." Her response was automatic, ignoring the
pleading in Chakotay's eyes and the burning in her throat. "I have to
go. Commander...I want you to do something. I want you to go to the
holodeck and program a scene you've been in before, something that
might be familiar. I'll send Kes to accompany you there. Maybe you'll
remember."
"TRUST" ( part 4) by Becca O and Your Cruise Director
Janeway was halfway to the bridge before she remembered
B'Elanna's warning about the rerouting of power in engineering;
whatever they were reading was probably nothing. Nevertheless she
knew that it would be better for her to be up there. They both needed
time to think. She exited the turbolift and was surprised to find Torres
and Kim poring over the engineering console, looking displeased.
"What's going on, Lieutenant?"
"I'm not sure, Captain, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do
with the plasma flow." The Klingon woman's brows were knotted in a
fierce scowl. "It's not a radiation signature I've seen on the ship
before.
It looks almost like..."
"...almost like the pattern from those storms on that planet back
there," Kim finished almost in sync with her. "That's why they look
familiar. Something on the ship must have picked up some kind of
energy trace..."
"We'll have to decontaminate everything we brought back."
Torres snapped upright angrily. "Harry, why didn't the transporter pick
this up when we beamed aboard?"
"Maybe it was something we brought back on the shuttle. We
were in a hurry to get Chakotay to sickbay, we didn't do a thorough
sweep." Janeway cursed herself inwardly. "Can you pinpoint the
source of the radiation?"
"Not yet. We'll have to do a magnaton scan." Torres turned to
look across the bridge. "Tuvok, I'm going to need your help
configuring the scanners."
"Get on it." Janeway hit her comm badge. "Janeway to Neelix.
I need you to take everything you collected on the planet we left
yesterday and turn it over to engineering. There may be a problem with
radiation..."
"Captain, I've just begun to serve tea!" Neelix sounded
outraged, as was to be expected, and Janeway moved her mouth in
imitation of the Talaxian's hyperbolic anger; then, seeing the
expressions on her bridge crew's face, she had to break the connection
for a moment, fearing that they were all about to dissolve into giggles.
She looked carefully at the ceiling as she tapped the badge again.
"Neelix, this is very important. We believe that we brought back some
kind of contaminant from the surface. Please, let someone else serve
tea and get to work on this right away. The safety of the crew is at
stake." A long pause followed, and then Neelix said, in somewhat more
subdued tones, "I'm sorry, Captain, but I believe that I've already used
some herbs from that planet in tonight's mixed greens."
"Then you'll have to make a new salad, Neelix." Janeway no
longer bothered to sound placating. "I want this done immediately. Or
I'm going to have to order the crew to keep out of the dining room
until the senior staff decides that you can be trusted with food safety.
That will be all." She turned back to Torres. "You and Tuvok go set
up the scan, and I'll send someone down to the mess to make sure he
does it. Harry, keep an eye on those readings and let me know if there
are any changes. I'll be in my ready room looking over the shuttle's
sensor logs."
"This is Earth?"
"It's someplace called Chichen Itza, on the continent I
understand your ancestors were from. I've never been to Earth, so I
can't really tell you anything about it, other than that it's an important
archaeological site. You once told Lieutenant Torres that you'd been
here."
"Can I go closer to the ruins?"
Kes looked amused. "Since it's a holodeck simulation, you can
do anything you want, Commander. The real ruins have been closed to
visitors for centuries, but tourists can view the site from approximately
where we're standing in relation to them. Is it at all familiar?"
Chakotay shook his head. The scent of the warm air and the
trees was familiar; the scene before him was not. Apparently he'd
forgotten thousands of years of Earth history--even his ancestors--as
well as his own past. He started to walk towards the towering stones,
then stopped and shook his head. "This isn't going to do anything for
me. I don't remember any of it. Kes, do we have a program of the
planet we just left?"
"I don't think we had time to make a thorough recording, and I
doubt it's been processed even if we did," the Ocampa said gently.
"But maybe we can reconstruct it from your recollections. It might
help strengthen your neural paths if you force your short-term memory
to piece it together. Computer, end program."
Abruptly they were standing in a black room with grid lines
crossing the ceiling, walls, and floor. "Computer, new program. A
beach made up mostly of pebbles and larger rocks, leading to a
churning sea. There should be dense forest about fifty meters back
from the water's edge. Daylight. Begin program." The room
transformed again: they were standing by the edge of an ocean, with a
rainforest behind them silhouetted against a blue sky. "Computer,
please raise the temperature in the room about five degrees, and add a
sea breeze. Create a storm environment--no rain, but clouds and
thunder in the distance. There should be steam rising from the trees."
There was a pause as the hologenerator struggled to keep up
with the changes Kes ordered, and then the atmosphere in the room
shifted again. "This is just a start. Your turn, Commander."
"Computer...the trees are too tall and not dense enough,"
Chakotay added. "The water was much rougher, and there were plants
growing in it." He paced a few steps with Kes following closely; he
turned to glare, then looked apologetically at the petite Ocampa's
startled face. "I'm sorry," he said gently. "I keep--almost remembering
things, maybe I need to be alone right now to figure anything out. Do
you mind? I promise not to do anything that's not safe."
"You couldn't if you wanted to, Commander. The holodeck has
built-in safety parameters." Kes began to back off. "Computer, show
door. I'll leave you alone, then."
As soon as she was gone, Chakotay began snapping orders.
"Computer, make the leaves on the tallest trees about three times
bigger, and take away all those little brown plants growing near the
ground. Put in some two-meter-high stalks with red flowers..."
"From the *holodeck*?"
"That's what the scan revealed, Captain." Torres did not look
pleased with what she had to report. "But I don't understand it. We
didn't make a recording from the planet's surface, we didn't have
enough personnel. And there shouldn't be any material brought back in
the holodeck unless someone brought something to eat in there, and
everything we checked from Neelix turned out to be clean anyway. We
should find out who's using the..."
"Janeway to Chakotay." The captain cut the chief engineer off
abruptly, following B'Elanna's line of thinking as she remembered her
last orders to her second-in-command. A moment of silence ensued;
she hit her comm badge again. "Janeway to Chakotay. Please respond,
Commander." Nothing. She jerked her head at Torres to indicate her
desire to exit the ready room as she came around the desk. "I'm going
to get him. Contact sickbay with your findings, tell Kes to meet me
there." She strode across the bridge, nodding at Tuvok who already sat
in her chair. "I'll let you know as soon as the Doctor can tell us
anything."
Janeway paced in the turbolift and walked briskly to the
holodeck, keeping her eyes straight in front of her. Bursting through
the doors, she was startled by the spectacle of the planet they had just
left behind--the forest, the sea, the pebbles--but Chakotay was nowhere
to be seen. "Commander!" she shouted across the rocks, then hit her
comm badge to try that once more. He should be able to hear and
respond to the communications summons from anywhere, unless he
was unable to reply...if, say, he were underwater...
"Stay calm," she said aloud. There was no way Chakotay could
drown on the holodeck even in an underwater environment. If he were
under the surface, he would still be protected by the fail-safes. She
strode toward the water's edge, fighting back a ridiculous surge of
panic, and started to wade into the sea. Only when she was soaked up
to her knees did she realize how foolish she was being. "Computer,
end program!"
The angry bark reverberated as the room reverted to the
familiar black grid, and a drenched Chakotay stared up at her from the
floor. "What the hell did you think you were doing?" she demanded.
"Kes said I couldn't drown, so I wanted to swim," he replied,
mystified. "Why did you shut the program off? I was remembering
things about the planet."
"Well, right now you need to get to sickbay." As her
preposterous fear drained away, it was being replaced by a fury almost
as unreasonable. "Get up, so you can put some dry clothes on." She
reached out a hand to assist him. "Chakotay, we picked up some kind
of radiation down on the planet. Or I should say *you* picked up
some kind of radiation. We've been reading it on the ship's scanners.
You have to come with me to sickbay, right now, so we can figure out
what it is."
He looked around the room in frustration, then sighed. "I want
to come back here later. Did you save what I was doing before?"
"I didn't tell the computer to delete it, so it should still be
there.
Computer, save last program as Chakotay Omega One. Think you can
remember that?"
She regretted the words at once, but his face was a mask. He
nodded and she called for the arch.
Janeway did not like the look on the doctor's face one bit. "The
radiation pattern almost resembles an REM sleep brain wave. Look at
the cycle of the radiation, on this chart..." He brought up a graph on
the computer screen "...and this is a normal human brain, in the
dreaming stage of sleep." Whatever's affecting his memory is not only
made up of some kind of energy--we must also consider the possibility
that it is sentient."
"Sentient?!" The captain could not keep the horror out of her
voice. "You're saying that that's the reason for his amnesia--that
something else is controlling his brain?"
"It's too soon to say for certain." The doctor had several padds
in front of him and was manipulating information on his computer
screen. "How much do we know about the nature of the electrical
impulses in the storms?"
"I don't know. I'll have to ask Lieutenant Torres whether
engineering has analyzed the readings."
"At maximum warp, how long would it take us to get back to
the planet?"
She stared at the doctor. "You think...it's that serious? We
should go back?"
"The only way I can make a diagnosis is to have all necessary
information at my disposal. I suspect that whatever is affecting the
Commander came from that planet."
A long moment passed, and then Janeway hit her comm badge.
"Janeway to Bridge."
"Paris here, Captain."
"Alter course. Turn the ship around. I know it will take us off
course for the Alpha Quadrant, but we're going back until we know
what's happened to Chakotay, Lieutenant, and what's causing the
radiation."
There was a pause, and then, "Understood, Captain."
They arrived back at the planet in less than half the time they
had traveled away from it, courtesy Torres' fine-tuned engines and
Paris' skillful flying. Janeway had not slept in almost two days and
could barely keep her head up on the bridge, yet when she tried to rest
in her ready room, her eyes would not remain closed. Chakotay spent
almost the entire trip on the holodeck, sometimes with Kes, more often
alone, usually underwater.
The first away team sent down was caught on the planet's
surface for almost six hours while a storm made transporter activity
impossible, even though they had beamed down a pattern enhancer.
Once they returned, the Doctor contacted Janeway with a tone of
disgust in his voice. "The plant samples have all been cut," he
complained. "I need live samples to do any real tests. Can you send
down another away team?" Since it appeared that no storms would
pass close to the sea for an entire forty-five minutes, the captain
agreed.
The bridge had not felt quite right since Chakotay had first
vanished, but it felt even emptier than usual when Janeway strode out
of her ready room. "Where's Ensign Kim?"
"Transporter room one," Tom Paris announced. "Waiting for
Chakotay, I imagine."
"Tom, what are you talking about?" She glared at the helm
officer, then hit her comm badge. "Janeway to Kim. What's keeping
you from the bridge, Ensign?"
"I'm sorry, Captain," Harry's voice came over the
communication system, loud enough for the entire bridge crew to hear.
"Commander Chakotay ordered me to stay right here. I assumed he'd
informed you..."
"Ordered you when?" A terrible suspicion gripped her.
"Right before he beamed down, Captain."
"I'm on my way down there, Ensign. Janeway out." She
nodded at Tuvok as she strode for the turbolift, trying to look as
though she weren't running. Nevertheless she burst through the
transporter room doors and practically flew at Kim. "Are you telling
me that you beamed Chakotay off this ship?" she barked, mentally
telling herself to calm down before the ensign thought that both of his
commanding officers had gone out of their minds. Her arms folded
automatically across her chest. "Ensign Kim, how could you let him
beam down when he..." Janeway's voice trailed off as she realized that
Chakotay must have fooled Kim; none of the bridge crew knew the
commander's condition, and Chakotay apparently had picked up
enough from her and from his logs to convince Harry to beam him off
the ship.
"I'm sorry, Captain, is there a problem?" Kim looked
distressed. "He ordered me to meet him here, then told me that he was
going down to the surface. I told him that we might not be able to
retrieve him right away, since there was a storm front coming in, but he
insisted. I assumed you knew..."
Shaking her head, it occurred to the captain that she had to
cover for Chakotay before he lost credibility with the crew. "I didn't
realize he was going down so soon," she snapped, hitting her comm
badge. "Janeway to Torres. I need you in transporter room one, now."
She apprised the engineer of the situation tersely when she arrived. As
she was speaking, Kim looked up in her direction.
"Captain, we have a narrow window available for transport," he
reported.
"What's the time frame, Ensign?," Janeway asked with terse
impatience.
"Based on the pattern and size of the atmospheric disturbances,
another window will not appear for approximately two hours."
"Can you get a lock on Chakotay?"
Kim's fingers banged at the console. "No. I'm sorry, captain."
"All right, then. I'm going down there. We don't have the luxury
of waiting two hours."
Kim and Torres exchanged a look. "Which one of us did you
want on the away team, Captain?" Kim asked finally.
"Neither of you. I need you both here. Lieutenant, get to
engineering, I want you to work with the doctor on finding the
significance of that radiation signature. Mr. Kim, I want you right here
until I'm back. I'll beam down alone."
"Captain, I strongly recommend another approach," Tuvok
counseled when she contacted him on the bridge. "It is unwise to have
the two commanding officers away from the ship in this situation."
"I understand your concerns, Tuvok, but this is something I
have to do myself." Janeway counted on the years she and Tuvok had
known each other and his implicit trust of her, as well as whatever
Vulcan responsiveness to human emotion might be telling him.
Stepping onto the transporter pad, she broke the link. "Ensign Kim, be
ready to beam us out as soon as the transport window is available
again. Energize."
"TRUST" (part 5) by Becca O and Your Cruise Director
Janeway's form materialized on the pebble-covered beach just in
time to see Chakotay's head disappear under water, several meters off
shore, as lightning crackled in the air around her. "Oh my God, no," she
gasped, breaking into a run. Calling his name was an exercise in futility,
but she did so nevertheless. Without hesitation or thought for her own
safety, she stepped into the water and swam for the approximate
location of her first officer. Swimming parallel to shore, she searched
methodically for some sign of another body, afraid that if she strayed
off course, she might miss him.
Finally, a movement attracted her attention. Momentarily
forgetting that this wasn't another holo-simulation, she tried to call
out.
Choking on the briny water, she surfaced, and, gagging, caught her
breath as a loud crack of thunder seemed to split the air around her.
She pulled herself up on the rocks, out of the water, trying to inhale
normally as she scanned the churning surface. A bolt of lightning split
the sky, struck the water a few feet in front of her, and she screamed...
When the explosion of water and heat died down, Chakotay
was floating on the surface, utterly still, face down in the water.
Janeway plunged in after him, caught him around the waist,
tugging him up toward the surface. She had thought him unconscious
and was astounded to find him helping her onto the rocks, out of the
water, as they sank onto the shore next to each other. The wind had
increased measurably while they were underwater. Lightning leant an
eerie glow to the darkening sky. Instinctively seeking shelter, Janeway
pulled Chakotay behind her as she stumbled toward the cover of the
trees. Breathing raggedly, they leaned against a trunk and fought to
catch their breath.
Chakotay stole a glance toward the captain. "Something's
different," he whispered. Her silence was unsettling, and for a moment
he feared she was going into shock. As he reached a tentative hand
toward her, she began to shiver uncontrollably. "That wasn't very
smart, you know."
"What? Saving your life or following you down to this
miserable place?" Looking incredulously at him, she exploded into
anger. "How could you not have known that I'd follow you? Earlier,
when I couldn't find you on the holodeck, I panicked. I forgot about
the safety parameters. A gut reaction, but if anything happened to you-"
"I'm sorry. But I *had* to come back here," he whispered
urgently. "My memory is here, somewhere. I can't go on like this--in
limbo--not remembering my past. Not remembering you."
The silence seemed to stretch, yet it was mere seconds before
the captain spoke. "Nothing--not even your memory--is worth your
dying for. If I have to make you move on without your memory, it
would be infinitely more bearable than spending the rest of my life
without you there at all. I want you to come back with me, whatever
happens." Janeway had turned to look steadily into his eyes as she
spoke.
The look on her face made his dire situation seem momentarily
unimportant to Chakotay. He wanted her more than anything he could
fathom. Pulling her toward him, he reached up to caress her face. His
fingertips stroked her face, her neck and up to her brow to smooth
back the damp tendrils of hair.
A sigh shuddered through Janeway as she pushed the tattered
remnants of his uniform off his broad shoulders. He broke contact with
her skin only long enough to release his wrists from the binding fabric,
then returned his hands to continue their maddening torture of her
body. Closing her eyes against an onslaught of emotion, Janeway felt
the zipper of her own uniform being carefully lowered. His hands
skillfully divested her of her clothing, baring her to his gaze.
She tugged his clothing around his ankles and helped him
balance as he removed first one foot, then the other. They stood
together, in naked abandonment with the sounds of the forest around
them, and a light mist falling from the sky. Janeway forced herself to
remain still as his fingers reached for her. He touched her throat and
followed the line of his sight to her breasts. She moaned in anticipation
as he lightly circled her skin, never quite reaching the right spots.
Soon,
though, it was too much to bear, and she swayed toward him. The
teasing had taken its toll, and Chakotay filled his hands with her.
She cried out at the intensity of her feelings. At this moment she
would have gladly confessed anything to him, if only she could have
found her voice. She had the breath to utter only one word: "Please--"
Chakotay captured her lips under his as if her life depended
upon the contact. His hands smoothed down her back, cupping her and
pressing her to his straining erection, groaning in marvelous agony,
reaching between them to tease the curls at her thighs. Janeway
shivered at the delicious feeling and opened herself to his touch.
Returning his caress, she reached down and grasped him with one hand,
her other hand holding his neck for support as they sank to the ground.
He cushioned her head with his arm while her thighs wrapped around
his waist and he buried himself in her. Relishing the feeling of their
joining, he remained still for a moment.
Janeway's eyes fluttered open to find his piercing gaze studying
the details of her face. The emotions she saw were shocking in their
intensity, and she had no idea that her own feelings were as clear to
him. He began to rock his hips in time with hers. Making soft sounds,
they rode the feelings until he could not contain himself. A ritual as
ancient as his ancestors was building to completion, and as his body
gave itself up to it, he was caught in a wave of total recognition. As if
from a great distance, beyond the pounding of his heart against her
ribcage, she heard him whisper, "I remember..."
Then the storm tore through her body, blocking out everything
but itself, sending electric jolts through her that made her thrash
against
him, screaming.
She opened her eyes to find Chakotay staring down at her with
an almost childish expression of tender delight. They lay still together,
listening to the storm moving slowly into the distance, each waiting for
the other to speak. Janeway had expected him to be angry, feel that
she'd taken advantage of him, and when he remained silent she thought
she'd misunderstood his last words. But when his lips quivered into a
smile and he said, "The inspection's over, Captain," she knew it was
him. Then her comm badge beeped, and they flew frantically apart to
pull the remains of their drenched clothing back on.
They didn't talk again for hours, until after the doctor had
thoroughly examined Chakotay and B'Elanna had scoured the ship for
any trace of the radiation signature, which was gone. Janeway had
collapsed in her quarters before either were finished, too exhausted to
think or even to cry.
She awoke hours later, thinking vaguely that she'd had a
nightmare with a happy ending. Then her memories slammed back into
her and as she reeled under them, she felt a wave of gratitude that she
*could* remember. How horrible it must have been for him, to have
feelings disconnected from facts. He had been flooded by emotion in
absence of any history or connection, while she had at least had
recollections to bolster her, the understanding that her feelings arose
from a temporary situation. Whatever had happened on that planet,
whatever had happened in the months before with the crew and the ship
and even that first afternoon in engineering, she knew her place and his
place, she was the captain, she had limits...
The truth rose unbidden in her mind.
After several minutes of living with it, she rose and crept down
the corridor to his quarters. The door slid open before she could buzz;
either he had forgotten to lock it, or he'd been expecting someone. She
moved through the darkness, whispering his title; he was not in the
living part of his quarters, and as she moved toward his bunk she
realized that he was lying on his back across it. "Are you awake?" she
whispered.
"Am now," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. "Sit
down. Are you all right?"
She sank slowly down on the edge of his bed, looking over his
head and out the viewport.
"I want to tell you something, Chakotay."
"Uh-oh."
"What?" She turned at the warm humor.
. "You never call me 'Chakotay.'" Janeway nudged him in the gut
as he raised himself up on an elbow. "I'm serious. It's always
'Commander.'" He rolled onto his back, looking up at her, lifting an
arm behind his head. "I'm listening," he added.
Taking a deep breath, she looked past him out the window at
the stars. "One of the first nights after you came onto the ship. I had a
dream about you." She gazed straight in front of her as if the memory
resided there. The sense of unreality that had unnerved her on the
planet closed about her again, despite the clarity of the moment.
"What about me?" Delight sang in his voice, absent any
aggression or sarcasm. It made up her mind to tell him the whole thing,
damn the consequences.
"We were making love," she admitted, and he laughed without a
trace of self-consciousness. "I thought it was a symbol for trying to
merge the crews--your ship entering mine." Without looking at him she
reached out to shove his arm while he continued to chortle, making him
tip. He overcompensated as he rolled back against her, knocking his
shoulder into her hip. "Actually I thought it was funny too."
"Who was on top?" he asked with innocent curiously, and she
hit him again. He traced a finger lazily up her arm. "How am I
supposed to analyze your dreams if you won't even tell me the details?"
"Neither of us," she said finally. "We were on the
Bridge...sitting, I was in your lap, you were in my chair." The
humming noise he made could have been interpreted as amusement or
approval, and she quickly added, "It wasn't very comfortable, but I was
thinking that I had to stick with it, because if we didn't finish then
we'd
never get your people fully integrated with mine. And then I realized
that I was starting to enjoy it. You were working hard to make me
enjoy it. I could tell from your breathing that you were getting close.
I
assumed you were doing it the way I was--thinking that it was
something we had to do for the good of the ship. And then, I looked at
your face. You were staring at me like the ship was the furthest thing
from your mind, you said my name. I thought that that was all wrong,
you should be calling me Captain. Then you smiled, I wondered what
my expression was that made you do that. And then you grabbed me
and threw your head back and I came so hard I woke myself up." She
finally met his eyes, which gleamed in the darkened room. "I tried to
pretend it meant something other than what it now seems obvious I
knew all along."
His expression was unsurprised. "You know when I knew?
When we found that wormhole, and that Romulan asked if we wanted
him to warn Starfleet to stop Voyager from launching." She squinted
at him, confused for a moment. "Once we realized that he was from
the past and we couldn't go back, he asked if we wanted him to tell the
Federation, when it was time. I said some nonsense about the Prime
Directive, and I couldn't believe you bought it--I didn't even know what
I was saying, I was so panicked. All I could think about was that if you
never came after my ship, I'd have been stranded out here without you.
And after he had gone, I realized that I didn't even know if I wanted to
go back now."
"Do you mean that?" she asked in shock, and he sighed.
"I have a recurring daydream about this ship. I never thought
about it much before all this happened, it was just a fantasy, there are a
couple of variations but the important part stays the same. Sometimes
I wonder where we'd be if the incident with the Caretaker that brought
us here never happened. If our ships found each other in the Badlands,
and we met there in battle. Or sometimes I think about what would
have happened if you decided to use the array to send us back, right
after my ship was destroyed. In either case I probably would have
ended up a prisoner on your ship. But when I picture it, we always
wind up working together--I always find a way to make you see what's
at stake for me in the Demilitarized Zone. I don't have any versions of
this little alternate reality where my vessel just escapes from you;
you're
in all of them." He took a deep breath. "Seska, Tuvok, Federation,
Cardassians, Maquis, I don't know who my people are anymore, I don't
know who I can trust. Except you."
She looked at him for a long, burning moment. "Chakotay..."
she began passionately, and then a smile exploded across her features,
lighting her face in the dusky room. "You want my ship," she
exclaimed in an impish, breathless voice. "You're in love with the
Voyager. I should have known." Her laugh spread to him
contagiously as she continued, "You fantasize about taking over my
ship and making me..."
"...serve under you," they finished in tandem as he rolled his
weight gleefully on top of her, pulling her under him. "You remember
that too," he chuckled. "I didn't realize it was going to sound like that
until after I said it, and then I couldn't get the image out of my
mind..."
"Neither could I!" she spluttered. "I should have thrown you in
the brig, right then." He gazed down at her trapped under him and was
unable to resist the tightening in his body. "Report, Commander," she
warned. "I want to know what the doctor told you, and what Torres
found out."
"As they suspected, the electrical storms aren't just electrical
storms," Chakotay said automatically, then paused. "There are sentient
beings that live in the radiation stream. They work almost like
antennae, communicating with intense bursts of electro-neural energy,
which registered as radiation on our sensors. They were probably
trying to make contact when they trapped me." He looked soberly at
her. "It might have been easier with me than the others in the landing
party, since I'm more accustomed to mental emanations, I've practiced
vision questing for most of my life. Or...the doctor said that it might
be
easier for them to control less-established neural pathways. So since I
was...confused about a lot of things..."
"Oh, god. I'm sorry," she whispered. "And then since we
assumed you had some kind of psychological amnesia and we shouldn't
tell you too much, that probably made it worse..."
"It wasn't your fault, you didn't know. At any rate, that was
what was driving me back to the planet. And then afterwards, the
pathways were clear, but the synapses couldn't reconnect without some
kind of jump-start. Which is exactly what you gave me, I guess." She
expected a lascivious smirk that never came. "I'm sorry if I took
advantage of you," he said instead.
"If *you* took advantage of *me*?" she demanded
incredulously. "You didn't know who you were or what you were
doing! I'm the one who should have known better, Commander..."
He grimaced. "Don't call me that right now!"
She fell instantly silent. "Sorry," she said contritely. And
began
to giggle. Then to laugh. He waited for her to stop until he realized
that she was well and truly out of control. So he silenced her the only
way he could think to do so, by covering her mouth with his own.
Her entire body seemed to envelop him at once, her arms
wrapping across his shoulders, her fingers in his hair, her tongue
around his, one leg up over his back and the other down against his
thighs. There was playfulness in the friction of her feet against his
rear
and calves, as her fingers tickled behind his ears and her legs tightened
around him. He felt her hands slide between them, tugging at the heavy
material.
"Wait," he whispered. "Hold still. This is for you." He rolled
her over and massaged her back, sliding down against her, feeling the
material slide between his fingers and her warm flesh. She ground her
hips in a circular motion against the bed while he stroked her, letting
out little cries which might have meant he was rubbing too hard or
simply indicated her relief. Her arms twisted when she rolled herself to
face him, wrapping her hair and the fabric tightly across her body as it
caught underneath her. He wondered how he had managed to keep his
hands off her all these months.
Pulling her uniform down, he kissed and nuzzled her while his
hands moved across her sides to lift the small of her back up towards
him. She was refusing to cooperate, one of her legs lifting between his
to rub against his stiffening groin. "Stop that, and let me make love to
you," he pleaded earnestly. She inhaled deeply as she relaxed, waiting.
The electricity between them changed, the current growing stronger
and more focused. He moved back up to kiss her mouth, softly,
passionately, one hand cupping a breast, the other resting against her
back. Then in one fluid motion he sat up, peeling her turtleneck off as
he rose, and fought with his own clothes while she tugged her
underwear out of the way.
He pushed her thighs apart and put his mouth between her legs
without preamble, making her shudder at the sudden jolt that shot
through her body. Her hips rocked slightly, teaching him her rhythm,
and then stilled as he lay one hand flat against her abdomen. His
tongue moved in firm, steady strokes while the tip of his thumb circled
her; occasionally he would purse his lips and exhale, raising
goosebumps over her entire body, finally bringing her to a climax which
made her shout so loudly she was afraid people might hear her in the
corridor. He stopped, letting her rest for a moment, then resumed his
kissing and stroking, murmuring hotly, "You're delicious."
She could hear the shake in his breathing and tried to pull him
up to her, but he remained hunched down in the darkness, inhaling her
scent, kissing the insides of her thighs while his hands wandered over
her body. She rolled over as he stretched out, pressing his face into her
hair. Sliding his hands across her belly, he held her thighs apart with
his
own, his fingers moving down to spread her open. "Yes, keep your
hands there...oh god, now," she moaned, hunching back against him
while her knees bent slightly. Her face pressed down into the pillows.
"Can you breathe?" She nodded fiercely as he curled over her,
probing, letting her shift around him. His breathing came unevenly, hot
against her neck through her hair. She tried not to move, to let him
control the tempo, but his fingers pressing against her drove her
inexorably toward another howling fit of pleasure. Her own fingers dug
into the pillows over her head; she stifled a cry by ramming one of them
into her mouth, tensing as she fought to hold back. "Are you all right?"
His voice was filled with the desire to spare her pain, overriding his
body's obvious desire.
"Yesssss...I think I'm going to explode," she managed to gasp.
"So explode." A suggestive, delighted purr. Once, twice, again
he thrust quickly and incompletely, one hand tightly curled between her
legs while the other splayed open between her breasts, and she
launched forward, keening shrilly as her body tugged and clung to him.
He groaned as he felt his own peak building, pressing into her in a hard
rhythm, until the heat and wetness and her cries of pleasure
overwhelmed him and he let go in a burst of grateful joy. He expected
to be exhausted afterwards, and was surprised to find a surge of
passion moving his hands over her, rolling her into his embrace,
refusing to relinquish their hold.
"Amazing how amnesia can clear the mind." They both
chuckled halfheartedly, sharing a pang which deepened and submerged
the humor. "Are you all right about all this? We never did get to talk
about it."
She huddled closer to him, letting her thoughts wander over the
possibilities. "I don't know. Maybe I need amnesia." He shook his
head. "We might find a way home tomorrow. Or it might be in a
month, in a year, in forty years. When I force myself to be realistic
about it, I know that we may not even be the ones who eventually pilot
Voyager into spacedock. For all we know, it might be our children who
complete this journey for us. I can only speak for myself..." She paused
as his arms tightened their grip. "I've been taking it for granted that
you'll be sitting next to me on the bridge forever, so I didn't feel any
urgency to think beyond that. I never let myself worry about what it
would mean for you not to be there until I thought I might lose you."
She let out a long, slow breath. "Well, I'm tired of being in that chair
above everyone. I'm tired of being alone, and I'm so tired of pushing
you away. I don't want to try anymore. Even if it complicates the job."
Chakotay buried his face in her hair and silently thanked his
spirit guides. "I'm trying not to interfere with your job--and I don't
want
your stupid ship anyway," he added in mock petulance, sensing her
smile. "There must be something right with my instincts. I didn't want
to trust you, but I did, from that first minute on the viewscreen. I
listened to you when Seska and B'Elanna told me not to, and I've never
regretted it."
"I'm glad," she whispered. "Because I've been thinking the
same thing. That no matter how many questionable decisions I've made
out here, I was right about you, and that was the most important one."
Her voice was firm as she turned her face to him, leaning her chin on
his chest to look at his face. "Now, where does that leave us?"
"I think it leaves me serving under you," he replied, and they
both laughed.
THE END